Landing in New York in 1980, a college-grad began embarking upon the epic journey of first-home-hunting in the City. After finding an ad in The Village Voice, the newly minted New Yorker headed to Soho to check out a loft. The three bedroom space was perfect… But there was a catch, the resident explains:

he guy offering the lease made it clear that the place would go to whoever put the full $15K fixture fee in his hands first. My cash was locked in transit, but one of my roommates worked at an uptown restaurant owned by a big sports star and, luckily, the manager was crazy about her. Within an hour we were clutching a paper bag stuffed full with cash. We jumped on the downtown 6 train, praying we’d be first to hand over the fixture fee and sign a 20-year lease.

With a new apartment, the college grad had it all figured out… Until the building got a new landlord.

Over the next two decades there were multiple rent strikes, no heat for years on end, elevators locked out and lawsuits galore. Needed repairs went undone.

The story ultimately has a happy ending, however. The resident has lived in the same building for the past 30 years, paying basically $1,425 per month for a loft that would basically cost 10- or 20-times that these days.

What’s the moral of this story? If you’re willing to heat your home with trash-can fires for a couple winters, go find yourself a rent stabilized apartment. Hey-no pain no gain!

Comments

Is this supposed to be an opinion piece or a fact piece, because the errors are so egregious. What you are describing is an Interim Multiple Dwelling or typical Regulated Loft scenario where the prior tenant sold his fixtures to the next tenant in order to pass on his rights for protection under the Loft Law. As far as willing to survive no heat, etc. for a cheap place to live, then this tenant clearly did not know his rights. It seems that this apartment was an illegal conversion to begin with so it didn’t have the residential sytems that are usually provided by landlords. In fact, in most IMD units the tenants put in their own heating and hot water systems, which is how the previous tenant got the $$, becuase he sold his fixtures. Any real NY’er knows that a rent regulated tenant, especially long term tenants in hoity neighborhoods are sitting on trophy units; they stay for generations, let alone decades because they would never be able to afford the same apartment on market terms.